Ferdinand Pecora

Ferdinand Pecora News

President Franklin D. Roosevelt set the standard for the first 100 days in office with an unprecedented whirlwind of legislative activity that sought to make good on his pledge for “action and action now” to combat the Great Depression.

One of the great debates to emerge from the financial crisis is whether the U.S. Congress should resurrect some form of the Depression-era Glass-Steagall Act and bring back the separation of commercial and investment banking. It should, but not for the reasons usually cited.

To get to the heart of what went wrong with the report released yesterday by the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, check out its account on page 254 of how the largest investor in a cash fund managed by Bank of America suddenly pulled out $20 billion of its money in November 2007.

With the ink barely dry on the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission ’s assessment of the 2008 market meltdown, the group is turning to other pursuits: infighting and preparing for congressional investigations.

White House officials and Democratic lawmakers seized on internal e-mails from Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to push for curbs including a ban on proprietary trading as they brace for a Senate showdown on Wall Street oversight.

Whenever the leadership class feels nervous, you can count on some of them to offer the less-moneyed masses a bone to demonstrate they care. Warren Buffett says his idea of “shared sacrifice” is higher taxes on the super-rich. Only for him, this wouldn’t cost much.